July 27, 2016

The two companies plan to expand drone delivery tests in Reno and expect drone packages to include “everyday essentials” such as batteries and sunscreen in the future, according to 7‑Eleven EVP Jesus H. Delgado-Jenkins.

July 25, 2016

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have developed the first placenta-on-a-chip that can fully model the transport of nutrients across the placental barrier — part of a nationwide effort sponsored by the March of Dimes to identify causes of preterm birth and ways to prevent it.

Prematurely born babies may experience lifelong, debilitating consequences, but the underlying mechanisms of this condition are not well understood due in part to… read more

July 25, 2016

Many in the general U.S. public are concerned about technologies to make people’s minds sharper and their bodies stronger and healthier than ever before, according to a new Pew Research Center survey of more than 4,700 U.S. adults.

The survey covers broad public reaction to scientific advances and examines public attitudes about the potential use of three specific emerging technologies for human enhancement.

New chemical allows for measuring the density of synapses in the entire brain in vivo for the first time, using a PET scan

July 22, 2016

How many of the estimated 100 trillion synapses in your brain are actually functioning? It’s an important question for diagnosis and treatment of people with common brain disorders, such as epilepsy, Alzheimer’s disease, autism, depression, schizophrenia, and traumatic brain injury (TBI), but one that could not be answered, except in an autopsy (or an invasive surgical sample of a small area).

July 22, 2016

Using neuroimaging data, Carnegie Mellon University researchers have identified four distinct stages of math problem solving, according to a new study published in the journal Psychological Science.

“How students were solving these kinds of problems was a total mystery to us until we applied these techniques,” says psychological scientist John Anderson, lead researcher on the study. “Now, when students are sitting there thinking hard, we can tell… read more

July 22, 2016

Cognitive brain training improves executive function while aerobic activity improves memory, according to a new study by the Center for BrainHealth at The University of Texas at Dallas.

The study, published in an open-access paper in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, compared cerebral blood flow and cerebrovascular reactivity data, obtained via MRI, for two groups of healthy sedentary adults ages 56–75 years. The members of both… read more

July 21, 2016

Facebook Connectivity Lab announced today the first full-scale test flight of Aquila — a solar-powered unmanned airplane/drone designed to bring affordable internet access to some of the 1.6 billion people living in remote locations with no access to mobile broadband networks.

When complete, Aquila will be able to circle a region up to 60 miles in diameter, beaming internet connectivity down from an altitude of more than… read more

Could prevent or reduce the severity of up 1.3 million crashes in the U.S. a year, including 10,100 fatal wrecks

July 20, 2016

U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration chief Mark Rosekind said at a conference today (July 20) that the government “will not abandon efforts to speed the development of self-driving cars … to reduce the 94 percent of car crashes attributed to human error, despite a fatal accident involving a Tesla Model S operating on an autopilot system,” Reuters reports. But autonomous vehicles must be “much safer” than human… read more

Could substantially decrease greenhouse gas emissions and reduce U.S. dependence on imported oil

July 18, 2016

Oak Ridge National Laboratory | 2016 Billion-Ton Report

The U.S. has the potential to sustainably produce at least 1 billion dry tons of nonfood biomass resources annually by 2040, according to the 2016 Billion-Ton Report, jointly released by the U.S. Department of Energy and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. That amount would substantially decrease greenhouse gas emissions in the utility and transportation sectors and (as the domestic bioeconomy… read more

Storage density of 500 terabits per square inch --- 500 times better than the best commercial hard disk drive

July 18, 2016

Scientists at Kavli Institute of Nanoscience at Delft University have built a nanoscale data storage device containing 1 kilobyte (8,000 bits) with a storage density of 500 terabits per square inch (Tbpsi) — 500 times denser than the best commercial hard disk drive currently available. Each bit is represented by the position of one single chlorine atom.

“In theory, this storage density would allow all books ever created by… read more

July 18, 2016

Physicists at The University of Texas at Austin have had the first-ever glimpse into what happens inside an atomically thin semiconductor device. In doing so, they discovered that a transistor may be possible within a space so small (the edge) that it’s effectively one-dimensional.